Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- Experts from the Institute of Macroeconomic and Regional Research (IMRI) updated the cooperation index of Central Asian countries.

The index consists of 7 indicators (exports, imports, trade value, FDI, tourism, labor migration, trademark applications) and reflects the degree of interaction between Central Asian countries relative to the rest of the world (in %). For example, the share of exports of Central Asian countries among themselves in relation to exports to the rest of the world.

Over 2017-2022, the index value increased from 31.4% to 36.3%. At the same time, during the COVID period there has been a decrease in the indicator (31.3% in 2020) due to the restrictions imposed.

1. The largest contribution to the increase in the index was made by the indicator “applications for registration of trademarks” - an increase of 2.2 times from 27.2% to 60.1%. This indicator reflects the interest of businesses in launching their activities in the countries of the region.

2. The value of the “export” indicator increased 1.3 times from 11.4% to 14.7%, which reflects the interest of the countries of the region in exporting their products primarily to the sales markets of neighboring countries than to other regions.

3. The “import” indicator increased 1.2 times from 17.0% to 20.4%. Thus, the Central Asian countries increased imports from the countries of the region to a greater extent relative to other countries.

4. Intraregional “tourism” increased from 73.0% to 78.8% (an increase of 1.1 times), which reflects the great interest of citizens of Central Asian countries to travel within the region (vacation, treatment, visiting relatives, business, etc. ).

5. The volume of mutual investments (inflow and outflow of FDI) within the region remained virtually unchanged, showing an increase of only 1.02 times (from 34.8% to 35.5%).

6. “Cost of trade” (the total amount of tariff and non-tariff payments made between countries for the export and import of goods) during the period under review decreased by 2.7 percentage points. from 70.9% to 68.1%. In general, the cost of trade between Central Asian countries is on average 4 times lower than with other trading partners.

7. A decrease was also noted in the “labor migration” indicator - by 1.5 percentage points. from 16.7% to 15.3%. Those. The share of citizens of Central Asian countries who prefer to live and work in the countries of the region has decreased.

At the end of 2022, Kyrgyzstan (55.5%) has the highest level of cooperation among Central Asian countries, followed by Tajikistan (33.1%), Uzbekistan (27.0%) and Turkmenistan (18.8%). The lowest index value was observed in Kazakhstan (18.2%).